


From the Ashes

by JinxedChangeling



Series: The Legend of a Runner [1]
Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, eventual angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-13 19:21:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28658658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JinxedChangeling/pseuds/JinxedChangeling
Summary: FemaleRunner5. All stories start somewhere. After her Helicopter is shot down the New Runner Five adjusts to Abel, and they adjust to her. Follows the events of S1 with some extras, character building and some extra side stories thrown in.
Relationships: 5am - Relationship, Janine De Luca/Simon Lauchlan, Paula Cohen/Maxine Myers, Runner Five/Sam Yao
Series: The Legend of a Runner [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2100294
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	1. Crash, Burn, Rise

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the first story I have posted in a very long time and I'm kinda happy to get back to posting again :) I've been working on this story and its subsequent follow-ups for quite a while now and figured that this would be as good a place to start as any. Hope you enjoy :)

Chapter One: Crash, Burn, Rise

The Corporal’s ears rang as she came to, blinking rapidly. She shook her head with a grunt of discomfort before her eyes popped open with a guttural gasp of agony as the pain that had knocked her out in the first place exploded across the side of her face. It consumed her for a moment or two and she cried out again before trying to orient herself. The task was difficult; the world around her was plummeting--quite _literally plummeting_. She reared back in her parachute in alarm, clutching wildly at the tethers attaching her to the chute and cycling her legs uselessly in the air. To one side she heard another boom and whipped her head around to see the helicopter crashing into the tree line in a burning wreck. The Corporal flinched at the second explosion when it’s shockwave impacted.

The rushing wind and her own breath filled her ears. Tears flew out from her eyes both from pain and the sheer force of the passing air. She was falling too fast. Her parachute was disintegrating above her. Fumbling at the straps on her chest she found her back-up chute and yanked the cord. The secondary parachute opened with a snap, abruptly slowing the Corporal’s plummet to the earth with a sharp lurch that knocked the air from her lungs. She struggled to regain her breath and get her bearings, running over what she remembered.

She’d been in the helicopter. The Pilot had been trying to make conversation the whole trip, had mentioned them having only half the promised supplies...Project Greenshoot...she’d talked about Project Greenshoot and then there’d been an alarm, the pilot shouting about them being shot at, the Radio Operator telling them to jump. She’d cleared the jump and something had struck the side of her face under her visor and helmet, something that seared and burned.

Alright then, she thought to herself, she felt reasonably caught up with her most recent predicament as the tree line approached rapidly. She started slightly when her headphones patched in the near-frantic voice of the young man from Abel.

 _“…if anyone’s still alive, if you’ve got your parachute open, this is Sam Yao from Abel Township. Awww, I’m just—I’m just the radio operator, man! I’m not supposed to handle this stuff! Okay, okay. Listen, you’ve come down—or you’re coming down in a horde of zombies. They’ve heard the noise, they’re coming! There are thirty—no, forty—aw crap! Look, your only safe path is going to be towards the Tower…_ ”

The Corporal’s head flew up and she twisted in her harness to get a glimpse of the tower before she passed below the trees. With the building sighted and marked in her head, she tucked her legs up to her chest and gripped the cords of the chute with a grimace as she braced for impact. It was another series of jarring lurches for her as the material of the chute tangled in the branches and brought her descent to an abrupt halt. For the second time the Corporal was left wheezing and coughing as she struggled to re-fill her lungs. The world swaying beneath her as she swung back and forth in her harness didn’t help her get her bearings.

The boy from Abel was right; in what seemed like a very short amount of time after the tree had snagged her she heard the all-too-familiar wheezing moans. Her ears were ringing again, her face hurt like hell and now her arm stung for some reason, but those moans sent all of that to the back of her mind and brought the situation into sharp focus. Order of operations—she had to sort out the order of operations. Alright, _First_ , she needed to get down from the tree. _Then_ she needed to head towards the tower. It had been to the northwest, she’d made note of that and her sense of direction was impeccable. She simply had to get down from the tree before the zombies reached her and then outpace or lose them en route to the tower. Simple...in theory, anyway.

With a grimace of determination she pulled her knees up to her chest again and reached for the knife in her boot. Within seconds she had unbuckled her harness and was sawing madly through the straps she couldn’t shrug off. She dropped a little more suddenly than she was expecting as the final strap snapped half-way through her sawing at it, but the corporal wasn’t completely caught off guard. She winced at the impact of the ground, even when it was dissipated with her well timed roll, but still she managed to scramble to her feet. There wasn’t any time to dwell on the ache that went through to her teeth at the landing, not when the rustling of bushes and the cracking of twigs underfoot made her whip her head around to glance back. The first of the grey-faced, walking corpses was approaching through the trees, its comrades scattered behind it.

The Corporal’s eyes darted around to get a grasp of her numbers and options. The horde was closing in on her and the gap for her to escape was closing along with it. She didn’t have time to try and recover her pack. Her best shot was the boy on the radio. She bolted; sprinting through the trees and dodging a grey arm that reached for her and missed by scant inches. All she had was the knife in her hand, the headset in her helmet and the clothes on her back.

She burst through the trees at a sprint, finally able to open up her stride as she reached the clearing, the tower in sight. It looked like some sort of mill. The Corporal frowned a little as the transmitter in her helmet came back on with a touch of static.

“ _Wow, there’s…there’s someone alive down there. Running! Hey, can you hear me?”_

“Ye-yes,” the Corporal managed to force out of her lips, struggling around a throat that clamped shut at the thought of talking to a stranger. Not that it seemed to matter, as usual.

“… _No answer.”_ The boy on the other end of the radio said, sounding disappointed. “ _But still, just look at ‘em go! Heading for the Tower, just like I said. Okay…running person. If you can hear me, well, you’re doing great. The main group’s behind you, and you’re going to come out of this forest soon, but there’s a…yeah, well, I-I can’t think of a phrase that’s not “small army of zombies”. Sorry, don’t do well under massive pressure.”_

The Corporal couldn’t help but smile a little. She thought he was doing fine. Stressed, perhaps, but he hadn’t lost his head. Quite the contrary, he proceeded to give her succinct instructions that she followed promptly, banking hard to change her direction, much to his delight.

“ _They can…you can hear me!”_ Sam cried with an exuberant laugh. “ _Okay, okay, we can keep you safe. It’s cool, it’s cool, we can bring you in—no! we can’t ask them that! They might be injured!”_

The Corporal frowned a little at the change in dialogue and glanced over her shoulder at the growing group of walking corpses behind her. A new voice had joined Sam’s on the radio: an American woman, calm and collected and urgent. 

_“All the more reason to ask them then! This is Dr. Meyers, only medic at Abel Township. Lord only knows I’m sorry to ask you this, but your route will take you almost past the old hospital. We know there are medical kits there from the first wave of infection--if you could pick up one or ever two, it would help us.”_

 _“It's too dangerous!’_ The young man, Sam, interrupted passionately, “ _You know what happened to Runner Five!”_

_“The zombs have all followed the sound of the crash!”_

_“And what about whoever fired the Rocket Launcher?”_

Selfishly, a big part of Five was on Sam’s side. All she wanted was to get either behind a decent barrier or up a high enough perch to escape the undead, but there was another part of her, one of the many parts that so often clamped a metaphorical hand over her voicebox, that was oddly glad to be given this mission to prove herself. Showing up with orders in hand on a supply helicopter was one thing. Showing up on a Township’s doorstep empty handed and begging for their hard-earned security and supplies was quite another. She listened to the unfolding argument between Sam and Doctor Meyers without comment--not that she would have been able to comment even if she’d wanted to. She was pretty sure the mic in her headset had been damaged by whatever piece of debris had hit her face. Her ears perked when Sam dubbed her their new Runner Five and she even picked up the pace. If she was going to be given this new designation then she was even more determined to earn it. 

The Corporal slowed as she approached the hospital Dr Meyers had mentioned. Like most buildings these days, it was eerie. The remnants of a barricade remained Personally, she would have preferred climbing inside, but if they needed her to search the ground floor, well then. Ground floor it would have to be.

In the comms shack at Abel, Sam and Maxine huddled tensely in front of the monitors, watching as the Corporal slid in through the gaps in the battered barricade blocking the door—an early, unsuccessful attempt to keep out the undead. With a couple of keyboard clicks Sam had accessed the security cameras in the hospital. With a few more clicks they had zoomed in on the tattered uniform and scuffed up helmet.

“Look, they’re injured.” Sam said, pointing to the screen where they could see the new Runner pulling their sleeve down to reveal a bloodied arm. Both Doctor and Radio Operator exchanged a tense glance but said nothing. If this new Runner was bitten, they wouldn’t be coming into Abel. They would have gone through all of that for nothing.

The Corporal started rummaging through the mess of the room, glancing around every once in a while to check for any Grey intruders. After a few minutes the Corporal stopped, apparently annoyed with something as they reached up and peeled the helmet off their— _her_ head. A short, curly, black ponytail swung just over her shoulders and wayward curls hung about her face. She shook her head and ran her fingers through the sweat-soaked hair, flinching at something. As she turned towards the camera again both Sam and Maxine winced and grimaced to see the painful, fresh burn that bloomed from cheekbone to jawline on the right side of her face.

The new Runner Five didn’t pause long though, and started rummaging through the mess, finding a backpack that made Sam sit back limply in his chair when he saw it on his cameras. She looked at the half-empty rucksack with the red number five stitched onto it and started snatching up small items to stuff into it before moving on. They watched her duck into rooms, forcing her way through a couple of locked doors quickly and efficiently with Sam and Dr. Meyer’s encouragement in her ears.

As they watched the Corporal—or the potential new Runner Five—Dr. Meyers started to feel agitated about the bleeding arm and leaned forward to peer at the screen.

“Ughh...I can’t see properly. I need to get a look at that arm and see if it’s a bite...”

The new Runner apparently heard her, because she looked around until she found the camera and then walked up to it. She winced and climbed onto a table to hold her forearm close to the lens as she pulled her sleeve back to show them the wound. There was a long, deep gash, but no teeth marks and no sign of nails. The woman hopped back down and pulled another face as she started to rummage through the drawers of the desk. She stopped short with a frown and pulled out a file, peering at it a moment before also finding a shirt, still in its packaging.

Wasting no time, she ducked into a nearby room and eased the door closed as quietly as she could, her eyes darting around the room as she held her bleeding arm close to her chest. The room was bare; the furniture had long been stripped from it to contribute to the barricade at the front. The result was a space that Sam imagined echoing with every foot fall. Visibly breathing heavily, New Runner Five wedged herself into a corner and pulled the shirt out of its packaging. She then cut both sleeves off with her knife.

“What’s she doing?” Sam muttered with a frown as she balled one length of cloth tightly and shoved it into her mouth. The New Runner Five still had her knife out and produced a lighter from one of her pockets. Taking deep breaths, she lit it and dragged the little flame along the flat edge of the blade.

“Ohhh no,” Dr. Meyers groaned in dread, “Look, Runner Five, I know what you’re thinking, but I don’t recommend it—”

“What? What’s she doing?” Sam asked nervously. The new Runner looked up at the camera again and held out her bleeding arm so they could see the droplets of blood she was leaving in a trail. 

“Oh.” Sam said, finally catching on to what she was doing. “Oh no. She’s...she’s not…”

With another set of deep breaths through her nose, the young woman took the knife, pressed the flat, heated edge to her skin and drew it down along the gash. Her makeshift gag muffled her scream as she cauterized her own arm. She dropped the knife with a clatter and lurched forward onto her knees, hunching over the now-burned, but no longer bleeding forearm and spitting out her gag. Involuntary tears and a trail of clear snot from her nose were streaming down her face as her breath came in gasping heaves while she shook from head to toe.

In the comms shack Dr. Meyers and Sam both flinched in sympathy as she poured out a bottle of water from her pack over the other sleeve and then wrapped her burned arm awkwardly with her good hand, her face bloodless and her whole body trembling. With a wide grimace and another few deep breaths, she hauled herself up and pulled a notepad and marker she had found out of the bag, taking a few seconds to write and then hold up the large block-lettered note to the camera in the room.

IMPORTANT??  
  


She set the notepad down and then held up the box she’d found in the locked desk before in turn setting it next to her little sign.

“Is that the Center for Disease Control File?” Maxine asked in disbelief.

“What’s that?” Sam asked.

“It might be nothing or it might be everything,” Maxine replied gravely. 

“That’s a pretty narrow definition,” Sam quipped, his voice tense.

“Runner Five, I don’t say this lightly, but that box could be worth your life to protect,” 

Runner Five swallowed and swayed as she nodded in acknowledgement, staggering forward a few steps before picking up the pace. Her strides became more certain as she went along, clearly feeling like shit but forcing herself forward.

“We need that file.” Maxine stated.

“We’ll get her home.” Sam agreed with a nod. He’d already lost one runner this week. He wasn’t going to lose a second. 

* * *

Each of The New Runner’s steps echoed in the Hospital hallway and she had to swallow down the urge to panic with each resounding thud. She kept her head down, eyes darting to every potential ambush point for the Zombs. She tried to move as quickly and quietly as possible, knowing that her success would be limited. She was quickly proven right when a shadow loomed through the frosted window of one of the doors, hollow groans rasping from the other side. A blurred handprint smacked against glass with a thud, smearing something down the pane as the zomb pulled back for another, sluggish slap. The shadows behind the window spread as the first groan became a chorus of wheezing, growling and grunting. 

The Corporal picked up the pace, but the first seemed to have alerted every other Zomb on the floor. Soon there were already thumping hands at windows before she even reached them. She gave up entirely on stealth. They knew where she was. A fresh surge of adrenaline kicked in and she broke into a full run, the pain in har arm and face forgotten with the all-important box clutched tightly in her good hand and the recovered backpack slapping against her back with each stride. It wasn’t just behind closed and barricaded doors anymore; sounds of the undead filled the corridor and the stench of decay was filling her nostrils just as fast.

“ _What’s that shadow over there_?” Maxine’s voice asked in her ear. Even if the Corporal would have been able to talk to them she probably wouldn’t have bothered with the obvious, particularly when it became clear that Sam had realized what she already knew all too well. 

“ _Aw, aww, no! This was what - when we sent her out, this was what happened! They’re following you, Runner Five - the swarm from the car park, they’re following you! Now, run!_ ”

She certainly didn’t need telling twice. She didn’t really need telling once, to be honest. She made a beeline for the first large window she saw. She hopped up and grabbed the frame with one hand, kicking the glass out with her booted feet and all but crashing through it to the outside. She didn’t quite make the landing and hit the ground with a shower of glass shards and dull thud that jarred her, but not enough to really slow her down. In the next moment she had scrambled to her feet and was running again for all she was worth. Sam was on the other end of her earpiece giving her desperate directions that she followed in a blur of terror and adrenaline. 

What cut through the strange zone that the Corporal found herself in was when Sam’s rapid-fire, terrified voice suddenly stopped and then stammered in slow, horrible shock. When she rounded the corner of the building the Corporal skidded to a halt at the sight of what had distressed Sam. 

It was a zomb. A fresh one. The grey was still a tint; it hadn’t completely eclipsed the rich, dark brown of the flesh beneath the virus. Her— _its_ features were still intact; decay had yet to set in. The Corporal-Runner could imagine that moaning, drooling face smiling and laughing, could picture the then-living woman pulling on that pink Jersey with the bold, large, white number 5 in the centre. 

The Corporal swallowed and backed up several paces to avoid the grey-tinted, groping fingers and started to run a wide arc around the zomb to reach the fence. She felt for poor Sam as he audibly grieved over the radio connection but she had to focus if she wanted to meet this ‘Sam’ or ‘Dr. Meyers” in person. She kept an eye on the thing that had been ‘Alice’, though her attention was almost immediately divided amongst the horde closing in on her even as she bolted through a small, wedge-shaped gap in the toppled fence to try and funnel them. It helped buy her a _short_ amount of time to build a little more distance between them.

The remaining run back was a blur for the Corporal. She registered the appearance of another male voice, this one older and deeper than Sam’s, belonging to a ‘Runner Seven’ but her focus zeroed in on Sam’s directions as the Radio Operator struggled to maintain composure through the sniffles of poorly suppressed tears and heartbreak. She had neither the weaponry nor the strength to try and take on the horde, but part of her wished she did so that she could spare this poor man watching what would inevitably happen. If she were stronger or less selfish she would leave the camera’s view and dispatch the zomb herself, but she needed his help to get back to this Abel, and she still had no means _of_ putting down the zomb. Abel would simply have to take care of their own, apparently. 

In what seemed like both an eternity and somehow no time at all she was cresting over a hill and could see a collection of buildings and wire fencing. People were heading towards her with guns glinting in the sunlight. 

“OPEN THE GATES!” someone bellowed. The Corporal barely heard whoever it was; she could barely hear anything apart from the moaning behind her and the ragged gasps from her own throat. Her legs burned, her chest was on fire, her back and shoulders screamed against the weight of the full pack strapped to her body, but she wouldn’t stop. She couldn’t give up now. She stumbled and cried out, her fingers brushing the ground as she fought to regain her balance.

“ _DUCK!”_ Someone yelled just before gunshots cracked by her ear.

The edges of her vision were blurring and sounds were getting further away as the gates creaked open. She stumbled through, tripping over her own feet while she somehow registered people shouting above her and the popping of gunfire. With the boom of the gates closing her safely within the township she tumbled to the ground, the force of her momentum sending her scraping through the dirt and into darkness. 

* * *

Sam bolted through the crowd at the sight of the young woman sprinting for the gates. Her crammed pack was swinging wildly and slipping haphazardly off one of her shoulders while she struggled to keep it. He’d seen runners discard items on a regular basis, but she was either too far gone from exhaustion or too terrified of rejection to let anything go—especially not the impossible black box clutched tightly in one hand.

“Out of the way! Out of the way!” He exclaimed, bodily shoving a few people out of his path. She was getting closer and closer, a throng of lurching corpses behind her. The gates screeched as they were hauled open with a group of armed gunmen rushing through the space with weapons firing. Atop the wall were a group of their best shots armed with crossbows to take out more of the ‘zombs with reusable ammo.

The new Runner Five pumped her arms madly as she passed through the space the gunmen had left her and sprinted over Abel’s threshold. She made it about thirty feet into the compound with the gates closing behind her when she took another misstep and tumbled to the ground, sliding through the dirt in a cloud of dust.

Her chest heaved almost violently as her breath came in loud, desperate wheezes; it was like she was having a slow-motion seizure as her back bowed with the effort to fill her over-taxed lungs. Yet, she still clutched the black box in one white-knuckled hand. Sam caught the look on Sara Smith’s face when she saw the bandaging around the newcomer’s forearm. As Sara jerked her gun up, Sam dove between the New Five and the rifle with his hands up.

“Wait, wait, wait! It’s not a bite! I saw her treat it on the cameras myself, it’s from the helicopter accident!”

“With the quality of those cameras? You can’t be sure!” Runner Eight snapped.

“ _NO!_ " Sam yelled, practically throwing his body over Five’s as a human shield. “ _No_ ! She just went through _hell_ out there and risked her life and did this incredible thing that even the best of our best couldn’t get and—and—“ Sam stammered. The clunking of boots and the drone of the gates closing brought a surge of relief to everyone around as the gates closed, but didn't abate the tension around the compound's newest occupant. Sam didn't have to struggle long without an ally, though, as a familiar, tall figure approached. 

“Put that down, Eight!” Seven barked, the Doc hot on his heels.

“I don’t know about that!”

“No one bitten fights that hard to stay alive!” Runner Seven snapped as the Doc knelt next to the newcomer, taking the bandaged forearm in one hand and trying to pry the precious box out of the vice-like grip. It took effort; their calming platitudes and assurances didn’t reach the young woman as she drifted in and out of semi-consciousness.

Immediately after retrieving the file the Doc took out a pocket knife and carefully cut away the makeshift bandage, holding up the arm for them to all see the angry burn marks there.

“She’s clean!” Maxine declared loudly before looking at the angry wounds on the young woman’s face and neck. “Of Zombs, anyway. We’ll finish the exam inside. I don’t like the look of these burns though. We’re just asking for sepsis,”

“C’mon,” Sam admonished the assembled gunmen, easing back from his protective splay over the newcomer and twisting slightly to wave medics over. ,”Let’s get a stretcher over here!”

As a couple of off-duty Runners rushed to the task, the Doc tilted her head to the side and pursed her lips upon noticing the dog tags. Sam saw the motion and looked from her to the newcomer and then back again.

“Well? What do they say? Who is she?”

“They’re pretty scratched up. Looks like…Corporal…R…something?”

“Any first name to go with that?”

“Just an initial. A. And is that…? Yes! That’s a blood type. Thank god, it looks like she’s O negative.” 

“A…R? AR? What, do we have a pirate here? Alright, that’s a pretty good one, I suppose.” Sam rambled, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Here, help me get her on the stretcher.”

“You got it, Doc. Anything for the Runners.” Sam told her as he jumped to help.

One thing was for sure, this was certainly a memorable entrance for a new Runner.


	2. Chapter 2; the New Runner Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The New Runner Five is introduced to Abel Township with mixed reception.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to my commenters last chapter and to everyone who left Kudos!   
> Sorry about the formatting on the last chapter! I think I've fixed it so it shouldn't happen with this chapter (and hopefully will have fixed it in the first chapter too by the time you read this). 
> 
> Without further ado, hope you enjoy :)

Consciousness returned slowly to the Corporal. Dull aches were the first thing to return: the side of her face, her arm, her feet...though she dimly noted that those aches felt numbed, distant. Someone had given her the good stuff. It had been a while since she’d had any of  _ that.  _ She shifted a little and felt a rough, threadbare blanket move over her. Sound drifted through her ears: a rustling of wind on thick tarp or some other such material, the clatter and bustle of movement around her, people conversing and moving outside.

She peeled her eyes open to see heavy, yet still flimsy-looking canvas forming the walls and ceiling around her. Was she in a tent? The ground was some sort of gravel or pavement—probably the best they could manage in lieu of cement or tile. Light filtered through cracks along the bottom of the tent wall and through the open flap door several meters away. The Corporal herself was on a cot with threadbare, but clean sheets and old blankets. There were three other cots of a similar make positioned at evenly spaced intervals along the walls, leaving a neat walkway down the middle. At the back of the tent was a file cabinet with an accordion organizer and a closed laptop set on top of it. There was a barstool in front of the stack that would set the user at the proper level to use the laptop if needed. Flanking the cabinet on either side were trolleys holding an array of medical equipment and kits crammed with supplies.

The Corporal--or the New Runner (she supposed that’s what she was, now)-- winced and grimaced as she pulled herself up to a seated position, sliding her legs over the side of the bed. She stilled upon seeing the thin, beige pants and her bare, bandaged feet. She didn’t remember changing. She looked down to note the old white t-shirt she wore and then examined her arm and the clean dressing that was tightly wound from palm to elbow. She winced at a sharp, tugging pain in her face and gingerly touched the heavy gauze there. Slowly, grimacing at the way her body protested the movement, she rolled her stiff shoulders and looked around, frowning slightly at yet another ache, this time in her hand. There was an IV taped to the back of her right hand and the injection site was sore. Her gaze followed the thin tube to the apparatus holding the bag. She reached over to unhook the squishy plastic and turn it over in search of a label.

There was a rustling to her left and the Corporal-turned-Runner looked over to see someone brushing against the open flap as he walked in.

“Hi,” A young Asian man said with a smile and an awkward little wave before he seemed to remember something and stuck his hand out towards her. “Oh, right! I’m Sam. Sam Yao. But, uh, I guess you already knew that from the—well, from the Radio. I’m the one who directed you here.”

The young man—Sam—was dressed in a long-sleeved woolly shirt that looked slightly too big for him and worn, baggy jeans about 2 sizes too large cinched in at his waist with a belt. His shoes were equally worn, but sturdy. His straight black hair went in multiple directions and had a thick stripe across the top that had undoubtedly been flattened down by hours of wearing thick-strapped headphones.

The Runner said nothing. She simply watched him. Carefully. His smile was welcoming but nervous and he fidgeted, uncertain of where to put his hands or his gaze as he tried very,  _ very _ hard not to look at the bandaging that covered half her face. The bag she was attached to through the IV was still in her hand and Sam noticed that and seized on the concrete topic to talk about, seemingly forgetting about the handshake he had started to offer in favour of gesturing and emphasizing with his hands as he started talking. His face became animated as he explained,

“Oh yes, that. Dr. Meyers should be here any second, just had to check up on another runner who came in looking a bit rough, too. It’s fine, the IV. It’s just…just-just…damn. What was it she said? Saline solution? Something to help rehydrate you, at any rate. Nothing bad. Not even the good stuff anymore, you already had that.”

Sam had a nice smile, The Corporal-turned-Runner decided. It was full and white and reached his eyes. Genuine. He seemed to give it freely. His eyes were kind. And pained. There was a very slight pink tinge around the edges and a trace of lingering puffiness. He had been crying recently. She remembered the Zombie with the headset and the jersey—Alice. Her predecessor. His girlfriend. 

For his part, Sam was curious. They all were. This new Runner from Mullins base was the talk of the Township and everyone had been asking him questions. He didn’t really know anything of course, but they all knew that he had been the first to talk to her, not that she’d been able to talk back. Now that he was meeting her properly, he wasn’t sure if she would be what was expected.

The woman who sat in front of him was young, possibly younger than he was. It was hard to tell exactly what she would look like after she’d had time to properly clean up; her dark hair was still a mess but it looked like it was either curly or wavy on a good day. Her penetrating eyes were blue, or maybe green... It would be easier to tell in better lighting. Her skin was a warm tone and he wondered if she was bi-racial like Simon or himself, not that it really mattered but people speculated about everything around Abel. The side of her face currently buried under gauze would undoubtedly be scarred when the bandages came off. Like most of the remaining survivors at this stage in the apocalypse she was slim, and like many of the runners wiry and chiselled. There was powerful, well-defined muscle tone in her arms and even her long-fingered hands looked strong. The scrub pants Dr. Meyers had given her covered long legs on surprisingly large, currently bandaged feet.

Cautiously, the New Runner Five nodded to what he had said and replaced the IV bag on its initial hook. She noticed the watch on his wrist and gestured at it. He blinked, confused at first and then glanced down.

“My…? My watch?” he asked. She nodded and it dawned on him. “Oh! Yes, the time! You want to know how long you’ve been out?”   


Again, a nod. He was more perceptive than he seemed—possibly more perceptive than he himself realized, if the New Runner was any judge. 

“A while, actually. The Doc gave you some of the good stuff for your, um, well for your burns and everything and you were understandably exhausted, dehydrated, head wound…the works…”

The New Runner tilted her head towards Sam in a gesture that struck the radio operator as a cross between amusement and a gentle rebuke.

“Yeah, right. Time. Back on track. You’ve been out, ohh, I dunno, fourteen hours? Yeah, that sounds about right. Probably the deepest sleep you’ve had in a while, I’ll bet, eh?”

Again, the New Runner didn’t answer. Instead, she gripped the fabric over her bicep between thumb and forefinger and tugged at it, giving Sam a pointed look in another silent question. Once again he blinked at her owlishly before his face lit up when he caught on.

“Oh! Your clothes! Right, yes. Um…don’t be mad, but…we burned them. Well, some of them. Your trousers and jacket didn’t make it. Standard decontamination protocols. You had some---well, you sort of had some guts and brains on them after your little…adventure. We made sure to go through and look for personal belongings, though. They’re in the box under your bed.”

The Former Corporal leaned over the edge of the bed and reached down to pull out a small cardboard box.

“There wasn’t much in there, though. Did—did you lose much in the crash?”

She shrugged as she went through the assortment of odds and ends. He was right, it wasn’t much. With another shrug she dropped the box unceremoniously on the bed next to her. There was nothing in there that she was attached to. Sam fidgeted. He wasn’t sure how to proceed next, that was obvious. The New Runner decided to give him a break. She spied a chair a couple of feet from her cot and stretched out a leg to hook her foot around it, dragging the light wooden seat to her and then shoving it back a couple of feet again. Having repositioned the chair in front of her, she gestured to it. Sam smiled and nodded, taking the offered seat.

“Alright then!” he said, twirling it around backwards so that he sat straddling it with his arms resting atop the back of the chair.

“So, um, do you—do you have a name?” he asked her.

The Runner looked at the scratched up dog tags around her neck and shrugged again. She pulled the chain off over her head.

“Five’ll work.” She told him in a voice that rasped with disuse, dropping the dog tags into the box next to her with a dismissive flick of her fingers.

“She  _ can  _ speak!” Sam exclaimed excitedly, motioning wildly with his hands and then catching himself. “Sorry! Sorry, that sounded rude…”

“It’s fine.” She assured him. Truth be told, she was mildly surprised herself. It had been a long time since she’d spoken to someone new so quickly, but there was something about this Sam that put her at ease.

“So you’d just—you’d just rather be called ‘Runner Five’?”

“Why not? It works.”   
  


For a moment something of the cheerful facade dropped and Five saw a flash of pain cross Sam’s face. The brief struggle to re-assert his friendly nature over his grief made Five regret her words and she felt the internal padlock closing back over her voice.

Just then the tent flap opened again and an attractive, competent-looking black woman in a tank top and jeans walked in with a clipboard in her hand.

“You’re awake.” The woman said with a warm smile. The Corporal--now Runner Five, she supposed--recognized the voice. The Doctor.

“Doc,” Sam greeted with one of his grins as he gestured to Runner Five theatrically, “Meet our heroic new Runner Five!”   


“Nice to meet you properly, Runner Five, I’m Doctor Maxine Meyers.” Maxine greeted her with another smile before glancing back at her chart. “I can’t thank you enough for that box, to say nothing of the medical supplies you managed to bring back. We haven’t been able to get anything out of that Hospital for a very long time.”

The new Runner Five gave her a curt nod in response.   


“As for you, well your burns were infected, but we managed to get a handle on that in good time. That said, I still recommend that you take it easy your first few days here and  _ please _ don’t ever cauterize yourself again without my say-so. That was incredibly dangerous and you won’t always get so lucky.”

Runner Five nodded again, this time a slow, respectful gesture;

_ Understood. _

Dr. Meyers nodded back at her in acknowledgement before continuing the run-down of her condition and the situation.

“...so essentially, you’re stuck with us until further notice and if you want to be a runner, you should be good to start training in a few days. We’ll just keep an eye on your burns to make sure they don’t get infected again but you should be good otherwise. Sam has volunteered to take you on the tour and he’ll help get you set up in your new bunk tomorrow morning. You’ll stay here tonight for observation just to be safe. So get some rest.”   


Again, the New Five nodded. She pulled her legs back over the bed and crossed one foot over the other. Settling her hands in her lap, she leaned against the metal railing headboard of the cot with a tense sigh as she stared up at the ceiling. Sam and Maxine exchanged a look, not sure how to interpret this complete disengagement from them. After a moment the two simply shrugged. They weren’t entirely sure what to make of her, but they both had jobs to do as well. With more words of support and welcome, they left her be and returned to their duties.

Five’s eyes flicked back in their direction as they walked out and she let out a breath when she was alone again, allowing herself to wince and touch at the bandages on her face. It still stung,  _ more _ than stung, but she wasn’t going to tell anyone that. She never told anyone anything...not usually. 

Without thinking, her fingers travelled down from her cheek to her throat, settling over her voice box with a slight frown. She’d  _ spoken _ . Even if she was worried she’d said the wrong thing, she had  _ spoken. _ When was the last time…? She couldn’t remember. She genuinely couldn’t--no, wait. Mullins. She’d talked to someone when she first reached Mullins. She had to have. Yes, her initial questioning at Mullins--that was the last time. Well then. Sam was the first person she’d talked to in  _ months _ . How about that.    
  


* * *

The next morning the New Runner Five got the grand tour of Abel. It didn’t exactly take long. The Township was small and looked to be struggling. 

Sam tried to be subtle in his fascination, but wasn’t very good at subtlety. After some time to sleep and wash, the new Runner...he mentally steeled himself. He knew he would have to move past this, this was _her_ designation now. The new Runner Five cleaned up rather nicely. Her shoulder-length black hair  _ was _ curly, it seemed, and she pulled it back in a short little ponytail out the back of her head with stray curls framing her face. She was tall, Sam hadn’t realized how tall she was when staring at the feed. She was at least 5’11 and was lean and powerful enough that she had an androgynous look from a distance. The most striking thing that Sam noticed in better light, however, was her eyes. They were a distinctive silver-grey in proper lighting.

“Obviously that’s the hospital we’ve set up back there, and over here we have some housing. Temporary, of course,” Sam said, gesturing towards a few groupings of tents circled around campfires just as a middle aged man ducked out from under a tent flap with a mug in one hand and a toothbrush in the other. He trudged along to join a que that had formed in front of one of the water pumps. Sam waved at him--calling him ‘Rajan’ in a quick greeting before continuing his apologetic tour-ramble. 

“...We’re still waiting to find a good carpenter or something. Then of course we’d need materials and that’s a whole other kettle of fish...it’s not perfect, but we’ll figure it out eventually. We’ve got about, oooohhh, a hundred people here now? And we only have about a dozen active runners for the whole township, so you are a  _ very  _ welcome addition. And that over there is my humble abode. Communications.”

Sam gestured theatrically to a shack with a rickety tower and a satellite dish precariously mounted atop it. His enthusiasm wilted and he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his hoodie.    


“Just a shack, really. Alice used to call it my ‘Radio Shack’, when she didn’t joke about it being our ‘Love Shack’...” Sam trailed off and looked away, but his pain was all too evident. Part of Five ached for him. She reached out a tentative hand to touch his shoulder ever so lightly. She swallowed and searched for the words to tell him how sorry she was, but as usual both the words and her voice failed her. She was regretting telling him to just call her ‘Five’ more and more but didn’t know how to take it back...

Sam seemed to understand, though. He gave her a tight, grateful smile and cleared his throat, mustering up his cheer again with a visible, but nonetheless successful effort. He took a deep breath and pointed to a field over to the south, resuming his tour as though nothing had interrupted it.

“We’re making use of the land, starting to get some farms going. And over there, you can see some of the other runners training.”   
  


He gestured to a pair that was jogging around the inner perimeter of the fencing: a handsome, sculpted young man with short, glossy, jet-black hair and a wiry, middle-aged woman with silvering, chin-length red hair. The former was clearly chattering on about something as the latter slowed a bit to give Five and Sam a critical look. The new Runner straightened her shoulders a fraction under the scrutiny and stared back. The older redhead’s eyes narrowed a fraction and she continued running.

“...Runner Five?” Sam asked. Five looked over to see him watching her with concern. She shook her head and gestured for him to continue.  


The remainder of the tour took very little time, the settlement--while growing—was still not exactly large. The perimeter was clearly marked by rudimentary fencing which mostly consisted of barbed wire and stakes that could be moved outwards as they expanded and looked for better building materials. Stationed every several meters was a citizen armed with a rifle that kept a watchful eye out for encroaching Zombies. Everyone looked tense and tired. At least a third of the township or more had to be on watch duty at a time, by the looks of it. Anyone able-bodied who wasn’t a Runner or the Doctor must have a shift. The new Runner could only hope that they were all at least decent shots and weren’t wasting ammo.

Sam ended the tour at a new building that had been set up near the farmhouse.

“And here we have the new Runners’ barracks. Like most things it’s still a work in progress, but the farmhouse doesn’t have enough room for all the Runners we eventually will need so we built this--well, we’re  _ building _ this.”

Five nodded as she looked around.

“So how does it…compare to Mullins, I guess?” Sam asked, trying to find a topic for her to contribute some sort of input if she wanted. The New Runner shrugged. She didn’t seem to like talking.    


“Is it…bigger?” he asked leadingly.

Again, he managed to get a little half-smile from her and she held out her thumb and forefinger about an inch apart.

_ A little. _

Sam snickered at himself.   
  


“Yeah, yeah you’re right. Stupid question. Military base and everything. Well, Janine will probably like you. As much as she likes anyone, that is...and actually, I don’t know if she  _ does _ like anyone...or if that looks any different from her  _ not _ liking anyone... Guess you guys were all big on all that discipline at Mullins Base, yeah?”

Five shrugged again. If it were still ‘Before’ she would have measured the time she’d spent at Mullins as a short interlude in her life: only a couple of months. In the Apocalypse, however, that was a long stay indeed. She had arrived at the Military base a month into the Apocalypse out of London and as far as she knew, she remained the last person to have made it there from the once-crowded city to date; it had been a dangerous Red Zone for a lifetime in this horrifying new world. A further two months at Mullins had been enough for her to complete basic boot camp, run a handful of missions, receive a field promotion and distinguish herself just enough for some sort of special assignment, it seemed. Not enough to trust her with a debrief ahead of time, apparently, but that was a gripe for another day.    


Five’s face gave nothing away, nothing that Sam could tell, at least. He thought that she seemed...okay? He couldn;’t tell if she was judging Abel or not. He knew she came from a big, well-stocked military base. Abel was no doubt different, he just hoped it wasn’t disappointing. Sam was almost surprised at how much he cared about what people thought of the budding little township. He felt rather proprietary. He sensed that she seemed to like it, though it was difficult to get a read off her. Nevertheless, he liked her. Her number might bother him for a little while, but that wasn’t her fault and he liked her. He couldn’t explain it necessarily, but he did. He just had a good feeling about her and gave her another smile as they continued their walk. 

* * *

After a week of recuperation and introduction to the town, Doctor Meyers, with clipboard in hand, accompanied the newest Runner to the track for her first day of training. 

“We’ll start here. It’s not much, but it’s what we have to work with.” Maxine said, gesturing to the large spray-painted ovals that formed a rudimentary track. There were a number of hurdles and makeshift obstacles set up along it. Off to the side were sets of benches and chairs and another water pump for people to stretch, grab a drink and watch the Runners train. 

The new Runner Five surveyed the little track, watching the Runners who were already there and training themselves. Among this number was the woman she had seen before during her tour with Sam. Once again, the woman was watching her, though she was far more subtle about it this time. Someone else likely wouldn’t have noticed. 

But Five noticed. She pretended not to, but she noticed. She kept the other Runner’s ongoing, hostile observation in the back of her mind, instead focusing on the man that Dr.Meyers was approaching. 

He was relatively tall, perhaps about 6 feet and much like those on the track he was lean and muscled. His skin was a warm olive tone and his bald head practically shone in the sunlight. His nose was slightly hooked and his dark eyes set 

“Five, this is Runner Seven.” Maxine said by way of introduction. The man, runner Seven, looked over and gave her a nod. 

“We’ve started to expand some of the skills we train into our runners, so you;ll be one of the first to incorporate some of our newer material.’ the tall man, Evan--aka Runner Seven told her. Five could appreciate someone who got straight to the point. She nodded and followed him around the rudimentary course. There was a weights station that had a handful of assorted dumbbells, though most of them mismatched and one or two that didn’t even have a pair to go with it. 

They ran her through a few basic fitness tests and Five couldn’t help but notice that they had a small audience. A new Runner was big news, it seemed, and her entrance  _ had  _ been rather spectacular. Off to the side closer to the two runners who were already training stood a woman that Sam had pointed out to her at one point; Janine. 

Janine was on the shorter side, but her authoritative bearing more than made up for any lack of stature. Her dark hair was pulled back into a tight, precise bun and even though she wore farm clothes that were ostensibly casual, but every item was so meticulously maintained and worn without so much as a thread out of place and there was  _ nothing  _ about her body language that was ‘casual’. The effect was that jeans and a flannel shirt somehow looked more like a business power suit. Her demeanour seemed out of place with a farm-owner to Five, but she filed away that suspicion and focused on the task at hand.

It seemed fairly standard; with a stopwatch in hand they timed her mile, following which they tested how much she could carry in a backpack from one end of the training ground to the other. They tested her accuracy with a ball throw at makeshift targets and evaluated Mullins’ firearms training by having her shoot at a couple of zombs from the walls. She appreciated the efficiency of that particular test. To round it all off they returned to the training area and had her run a sort of obstacle course with makeshift hurdles. From what she gathered, she seemed to be doing alright, at least. 

As Five neared the final hurdle she caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye. Without missing a beat she hurled herself forward into a roll to avoid the stray ball that had been aimed at her head and finished the tumble on her feet, leaving her with a mere two strides before the overturned fridge hurdle. She vaulted it and slowed, her gaze snapping to the redheaded woman who had “misthrown” her missile. Five’s eyes narrowed and she walked back to pick up the red lacrosse ball. She glanced at the woman and tossed the ball up in the air once, catching it with a snap. Without warning her arm snapped back and she hurled the ball back to the other Runner, aiming for the space next to her right ear. 

The older woman’s hand shot up to catch the missile in a returning smack and the two stared each other down for a moment before Five continued following Dr. Meyers and Runner Seven. 

Sara Smith, for her part, narrowed her eyes. The girl was good on her feet. Perhaps a little  _ too _ good on her feet. Eight knew she was a suspicious person, but that suspicion had kept her alive and she wasn’t about to stop now. 

“Is everything alright out there?” Janine asked Sara when she approached, having seen the interactions between the two Runners on the training ground. The Farmhouse owner stood with her arms clamped over her chest and a frown on her face, a typical stance for her. 

“Keep an eye on that one,” Sara told her as she grabbed a towel to dab at her sweaty face, neck and chest. 

“You think she’s a problem?” 

“She has the potential to be one.” 

“She was sent from Mullins Base.” Janine remarked with a deepening frown, sounding suspicious herself. 

“Was she? Funny thing in this new world of ours, they can’t exactly send photos of their personnel now, can they? She could be anyone as far as we know. Could even be the one who shot down the chopper. Anyone can steal a uniform.”

“And the burns?” 

“Could have been obtained  _ stealing _ from a burning wreckage just as well as from being shot down. She’s definitely determined enough to make a dangerous gamble like that if she had to--you heard what Sam and Maxine saw her do to her own arm out there. There’s desperation and then there’s  _ that _ .” 

Janine looked over to where the new Runner was stretching. 

“Keep an eye on her,” she agreed.

* * *

Having confirmed that the new import from Mullins Base would indeed become an Abel Runner, the seemingly final (official) step to settling her in was to properly assign her a bunk. Following her stay in the medical tent she had been using one of the brightly coloured camping tents and a sleeping bag while they figured out where to put her on a more permanent basis. Abel currently had a series of heavier, larger tents, shacks and ramshackle construction products that stood in for housing. Janine and a handful of people stayed in the house, but a minimum of two guest rooms were kept empty for Runners coming back from difficult missions. In the end it was decided that Five would bunk with Jody, Runner 4. 

“...And here you are. Home, sweet home,” Maxine announced as she pulled the tent flap back to allow the new runner admittance. Jody looked up from her knitting and beamed. She was sitting on the bottom bunk with balls of yarn and paper patterns strewn around her. 

“Hi there! I’m Jody, Runner 4. I’ll be your bunk mate,” she enthused in her strong northern accent as she stood and thrust out a hand to Five. The taller Runner looked at the offered hand. There was an uncomfortably long pause before Five haltingly accepted the gesture. Jody’s smile, already faltering with the awkwardness of the silence, became forced as she pumped their joined palms in  _ the _ most awkward handshake of her life. 

“So, you made quite an impression so far!” Jody said, glad to retrieve her palm from the uncomfortable contact. Five simply looked back at her. After a pause she shrugged, leaving Jody at a complete loss of where to try and take the conversation next. 

“Well...if you...ever want to chat or knit or learn to knit...I guess you know where to find me, then! You must be tired. I guess I’ll...leave you be?” 

Five gave her another shrug and reached a long arm up the little ladder to haul herself into the unclaimed top bunk. Jody looked helplessly to Maxine who gave her a sympathetic smile and shrug. Neither really knew what to do and so they made some idle, friendly small talk for a minute or so before the very busy doctor had to leave. Jody sighed and retrieved her knitting kit from under the bunk, settling into the comfortable, meditative clicking of the needles. She welcomed any distraction from the heavy, awkward air of silence that surrounded this new Five. 

The upper bunk had minimal clearance between Five and the canvas roof. She wouldn’t even need to extend her arm to touch it but she wasn’t really seeing the give and sway of the material above her. Her heart seemed loud in her ears as she tried to calm her nerves. She hated the first few nights with new roommates; she hated the stress of gaging what she needed to do to avoid setting anyone off, of learning their habits and how to edge around them, of having to dodge attempts at conversation that were always doomed to fail. When they were nice and welcoming, like Jody was, it was almost worse. Either they were hiding something and would try to catch her unawares or,  _ even _ worse, were genuinely friendly, good people who were stuck with her for company. 

The silence between the two runners remained, punctuated by Jody’s knitting needles until finally the senior runner decided to turn in. She assumed that Five must have fallen asleep long ago, but in truth Five remained awake for a long time into the night, thinking and speculating and worrying at the bandages around her arm with short fingernails. Her bed was more comfortable than the sleeping bag on the ground but it was only after Jody had been asleep for at least an hour Five finally managed to drift off. 

* * *

A day or two later was one that Maxine thought would be a big deal for their newest Runner. She came in with a bright smile to announce that Five’s bandages could come off. The Doctor had expected trepidation from Five; in her experience most had trouble looking at a disfigurement for the first time. The inscrutable young woman, however, remained as impassive as ever. Maxine forced the strained smile to remain on her face, privately struck by just how tiring it was to provide all of the emotional and social energy when interacting with this girl. 

With small talk quite clearly off the table, Maxine got right to it and had Five sit directly in front of her as she worked. 

It was a silent process and the Doctor was reminded of how much she appreciated small talk or back and forth with her patients as soon as it was absent with this one. The silence made her work go faster, sometimes, sure, but she appreciated being able to build a relationship with the people under her care. She started first with the forearm, revealing a long scar that was as ugly as Maxine had anticipated. She very carefully controlled her expression to prevent herself from wincing at it before moving on to the bandages on the younger woman’s face. 

“Alright. There you go,” Dr. Meyers said as she removed the last of the dressings a few minutes later. She looked at the angry scarring with sympathy, uncertain of exactly how to proceed with this grave, quiet patient.The doctor couldn’t get over how difficult the girl was to read and Maxine wasn’t sure how she’d react to seeing these scars. FIve’s expression on examining her forearm had been impassive, stoic and she hadn’t lingered on it. Hesitantly, the Doctor reached into her bag for a small, dusty hand mirror. 

“Do you want to see?” She asked her kindly. 

The Runner took the offered mirror. She frowned at it and turned her head slightly to get a better look at the new addition to her face, her fingers ghosting over the expanse of scar tissue that spread from cheekbone to jaw. The flesh had taken on a number of different shades of angry red with sprawling, raised ridges of glaring white. She let out a huff of air through her nose and one corner of her mouth twitched as she examined the scar.

To Maxine’s puzzlement, Five didn’t seem bothered by the disfigurement. If anything she seemed... _ pleased? _ Or perhaps relieved. Admittedly ‘seemed’ was the operative word. The girl was still difficult to read even without half her face covered in gauze. 

Whatever she thought of it, she nodded to the Doctor. 

“Thank you, Dr. Meyers.” she said quietly, handing her back the mirror.

Maxine blinked as she took the mirror back, dumbly watching the younger woman get up and leave dumbly. She wasn't sure what she had expected, but the interaction left her perplexed. The strange interaction left her perplexed, just as the previous one-sided exchanges had prior to that, but it wasn't until she was shelving newly scavenged medical supplies that evening that she realized what else had been significant in that appointment; apart from the complete non-reaction to having her face so painfully rearranged, that was the first thing the Doctor had heard come out of New-Five’s mouth.    
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming up next; Five starts running missions under scrutiny and suspicion while the Runners adjust to the new addition to their ranks. Sam, Jody and others continue to grieve.


	3. Chapter 3: Settling In.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Abel and their new Runner Five adjust to each other while both the Runners and Sam continue to grieve Alice. Five goes on her first official mission as an Abel Runner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I've been working on more than just the chapter this week. At the end of the chapter is a link to my instagram with an extra I've been working on as well :)

“Sooo, Clover!” Simon greeted as Jody approached the Runners’ customary table in the mess tent,

“You’ve got the new girl for a bunkmate! Go on then, what’s she like? None of us have really met her yet,”

“She’s...different,” Jody began as diplomatically as possible as she joined Simon, Maggie, Cameo and Kytan. None of them failed to notice the grimace that spread across her mouth as she said it, however.

“She can’t be that bad, can she?” Maggie asked.

“What, does she snore? Make a mess? Give you a hard time?” Simon asked, his last statement carrying an edge to it that promised trouble if someone was harassing his lucky friend. Jody, for her part, shook her head.

“No, she doesn’t snore and I don’t think she’s even brought anything to the tent. She’s just...I don’t know. She’s just so...distant? She hasn’t said a single word to me, not one. Not hello, goodbye, 'good morning', 'good night', 'how are you', nothing.”

“She seems quiet,” Maggie started, having seen her a handful of times on the training track.

“There’s quiet and then there’s just _silence_.” Jody told them.

“D’you think she’s a mute? Maybe something happened to her during the outbreak?” Kytan suggested.

“No, Sam and Maxine both say she can talk...she just...won’t talk to me. I don’t know if I’ve offended her, or what. She’s just so cold…” Jody lamented as she pushed the plain oatmeal around in her bowl with her chin in her other hand. She’d been running through the interactions she’d had with her new roommate all morning and couldn’t figure out for the life of her what she could have done to offend the new Runner. Simon offered her a supportive grimace of a smile before shrugging and turning back to his own bowl. “Eight doesn’t like her,” He said. “You should have seen the way she looked at her when she came out on the running track,”

“I heard about that!” Kytan interrupted just a little too loudly and a little too enthusiastically. Cameo elbowed him in the ribs to quiet him down.

“Ow! Watch it!” Kytan exclaimed before lowering his voice a fraction. “Did they really get into a fight in the middle of the yard?”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Cameo scolded him.

“Nah, nothing that exciting.” Simon scoffed. “They just threw the lacrosse ball at each other and had a staring match.”

“That doesn’t have to mean anything. Eight gives everyone a hard time until she’s got the measure of you. Sam likes her.” Jody remarked, determined not to be the bitter gossip.

“And Sam gives everyone an easy time when he first meets them,” Simon pointed out.

“Hello everyone,” A quiet, mild voice greeted as Chris McShell approached with his own tray. The runners automatically shifted over to make space for one of their own. The maths professor pushed a pair of glasses further up his nose as he settled in. “What are we talking about?”

“New girl,” Maggie said around a mouth full of porridge.

“The new Runner Five? She’s your new roommate, isn’t she?” Chris asked Jody. Jody pulled a slight face.

“Yeah....” she said, stirring the contents of her bowl a bit more. “It was the first bunk available and they’d finished passing Alice’s stuff around. I think Sam got most of it…” The mood at the table sank.

“I’m gonna miss her.” Cameo said.

“We all will,” Simon told her, reaching a long, muscled arm across the table to grip her shoulder supportively. “But, she wouldn’t want us to mope for too long, remember?”

“No. No, she wouldn’t want us to ‘mope’ and if she were here she’d try to cheer us up.” Jody proclaimed with determination. “We should really keep an eye on Sam, though. I don’t think he’s taking it as well as he’s trying to make us think,”

“An actor that one is not.” Simon agreed. “Who’s got the next run with him?”

“I think I do.” Chris said.

“That’s good! He loves you! Get some impressive kills in, that’ll cheer him right up!” Maggie said, perking up with optimism. Chris pulled a face.

“Come off it,” he half-grumbled-half-begged. “I just notice patterns. That’s all. It isn’t that special…”

The group hadn’t noticed Runner Eight take a seat at one of the tables a few feet away, but she had listened and heard just about every word while she quietly ate her own breakfast. Hearing Jody’s account of New Five’s behaviour in private was another little note to mentally file away about this “import” from Mullins...if indeed that was who she was. She was surprised they hadn’t invited her over, but the group of younger runners didn’t always notice things like that when they were chatting together like they were. Sara continued to eat her breakfast thoughtfully. Like everyone else, she was worried about Sam too, but she knew that the other runners and the Doc would make sure he was looked after. It was her and Janine’s job to protect the township which meant keeping a close eye on this suspicious new arrival. She had arranged to have New Five’s first run with her in the next couple of days. Runner Eight had just put her spoon down as she finished her breakfast when an alarm shrieked over the speakers across the town. She was on her feet in the next second, as was everyone else sitting at the assorted picnic tables in the mess tent. They exchanged tense looks and within seconds Sam’s voice was sounding over the speakers asking for Runners to report to the gates for emergency decoy duty. Everyone in the tent was instantly on the move. It looked like that first real assessment would happen sooner than Sara had thought.

* * *

No one at Abel was ever idle unless they were bed bound and so while Five wasn’t scheduled for her first real run for the next couple of days, she had already been introduced to the duty roster. On Runners’ rest days they were assigned to another area of the township to provide extra, necessary hands. Five was an early riser and had gotten up before dawn to grab a quick apple for breakfast and run a few laps on the track to de-stress a bit before reporting to a woman named Gloria for inventory. 

“Ah, hello! You’re here then. Early. RIght. Punctuality and all that.” The middle aged woman greeted with forced cheer, trying very hard not to stare at the large burn scar on Five’s face and so managing to stare almost exclusively at it. She would swear up and down that she couldn;t help it; It was just so hard not to feel _judged_ by that piercing, freezing stare and Gloria was certain that the younger woman was judging her. She may have been a few minutes late, but Why else would she stay so eerily silent and just _stare_? She was almost certainly judging Gloria’s frumpiness, the pudge around her middle and hips, the care that she took with her appearance that Gloria was certain she was somehow both falling short in and overdoing. 

Five, on her end, simply pulled the door to the converted garage open and walk in without a word, heading straight to the clipboards hanging on the wall, barely looking at her companion. Gloria grimaced out a smile, feeling the slight as the tall young woman made her way over to the grouping of full backpacks from the previous day’s missions. 

“Alright then...quiet day....again,” Gloria grumbled, her volume dropping with each successive phrase. 

Five’s eyes flicked in the lady’s direction but made no comment verbally or physically and sat down to work, all but ignoring the friendly attempts at chatter. She simply opened the first bag with a large number 7 sewed onto the front and started to empty its contents, her posture rigidly straight with tension as she knelt on the ground. She watched Gloria out of the corner of her eye as the former storekeeper sat down in a chair with a mild huff and started to empty the knapsack with a bright blue ‘13’ on it. It was a relief to both of them when they were joined by the third person to arrive as the familiar tall, lean, bald man entered the garage with an amiable smile. 

“Hello everyone, sorry I’m late,” Runner Seven greeted them amiably. 

“Oh, not to worry, Love!” Gloria reassured him, clearly relieved by having someone familiar to chat with and ease the tense atmosphere--for her at least. Five merely nodded a fraction to acknowledge his greeting, feeling her posture inch even straighter with tension. She could feel the scrutiny and while she continued to feel out the people around her it made her wary and clammed her up further. She had already emptied out the backpack in front of her and recorded its contents. After setting aside some medication to take to the med-tent, she pushed her pile towards the shelves to start putting the assorted objects in their designated places while listening to the conversation that ensued. 

After the two exchanged small talk the conversation turned quite quickly to something that Runner 13 had found on her run. 

“Ohhh, Alice would have _loved_ this,” Gloria said with sad fondness as she pulled out and unrolled a bright pink t-shirt. 

“I think that was part of why Cameo grabbed it, to be perfectly honest. The Runners are taking her loss hard.” 

“Not as hard as our Sam, I wager,” Gloria lamented. “I’m worried about him, Evan. He tries so hard to keep everyone together and be there for everyone else, he doesn’t look after himself properly.” 

“You’re not the only one concerned, but don’t worry. We’re keeping an eye on him, too. So is Doctor Meyers.” 

“He’s a good lad…” Gloria said with a worried shake of her head. She heaved a sigh. “And Alice was a good Lass. There’ll be no replacing her…” 

Five’s arms flexed in a wary flinch, though she pretended not to hear the comment that felt so very pointed to her and kept her expression as schooled as ever. Runner Seven picked up on the potential discomfort of the comment even if he didn’t quite catch Five’s reaction and was quick to add,

“There’s no replacing anyone as a person, of course, but as a Runner, Alice wouldn’t have wanted Abel to be short handed.” he reminded his townmate. 

“No, of course not. You know what I meant.” Gloria replied, flushing as she realized what it was she had said while the new holder of Alice’s number was in the room with them. She hadn’t meant to offend and was mortified when she realized her misstep, but she also meant it. Alice had been as popular as Sam in the Township. Losing her had been quite the blow, even in the apocalypse where horrible death was an everyday occurrence. 

“It looks like Runner Four did a bang up job at the Supermarket yesterday--”

Runner Seven’s praise was cut off by the blaring of an alarm over the speakers. Janine’s voice sounded quickly afterwards in an urgent tone. 

“ _All Runners report to the gates! This is an emergency! Civilians report to your emergency lockdown stations!”_

Gloria paled in fear but got to her feet. Five was already halfway there and Runner Seven had to catch up with her. The Head of Runners was pleased that she had taken the safety measures lecture and mini-drill so much to heart and expressed as much to her. When they arrived at the meeting point by the gates Five saw that there was a pile of noise makers waiting for them. 

“Alright everyone, you know the drill. Partner up, grab the noisemakers.” Seven ordered “Its our job to keep the Zombs as far away from the township as we can while they fix the gates. Lets go,” 

“Hello there, Five.” a familiar voice half-drawled behind her. Five turned slightly to see Runner Eight waiting with two noise makers held up as though in display. She thrust one into Five’s hands. The younger Runner took it, not breaking eye contact. This mission was going to be interesting regardless of the Zombies. 

* * *

  
  


To say the mission was _tense_ was an understatement. Eight made no bones about her mistrust and her willingness to shoot her fellow runner if that mistrust should prove to be founded. Five, on the other hand, was all too wary of the older woman’s cough and was constantly running scenarios in her head of how she would survive her partner Going Grey mid-run. She didn’t answer any of the questions Eight asked, but given their rhetorical nature that wasn’t a problem. The aim wasn’t for her to answer, it was to prove a point; This woman was dangerous, and she was making no bones about it. 

Five’s irritation built when Eight continued to insist on _chatting_ long after she’d made her point. The continued needling might not have gotten the reaction that Eight was looking for, but it set Five’s teeth on edge and heightened her own suspicion and mistrust to the point where she very nearly attacked when Eight raised her gun. 

“Duck down just a second there, Honey,’ The older woman warned cheerfully as the pistol arced up. Five dove out of the way as Sara fired and a zomb gaining on them in the shadows dropped like a stone. Five glanced over and ground her teeth. She was not a fan of this little ‘hazing’ vibe she was getting. She already knew from the training yard that this was a woman who was intent on testing her and she had a nagging suspicion that failing any particular ‘test’ wouldn’t end well on Five’s end. 

If Runner Eight wanted the stress to make Five slip up, however, she was going to be disappointed. Much like Eight and much like a good number of the survivors, Five hadn’t made it this far in her life by letting that sort of thing trip her up. Stress her out? Naturally. Prompt mistakes? Not likely. Even when Eight turned the radio off to put her on edge, Five kept her cool. Her brain kicked into overdrive formulating an escape plan if she needed it, but she did not under _any_ circumstances panic. Panic got you killed. Five hadn’t lived this long by letting herself _panic_. Especially not when they could hear and see a group of Zombs approaching them. As long as that damn cough stayed a cough and Eight’s threats remained hinted and verbal, she could get through this run. She’d lived through worse and would just do her job. Eight turned the radio back on and let Sam’s furious admonitions roll off her back with a smug ease. 

“You know, Sam,” Eight remarked as they rounded a bend in the road to see more Zombs shambling through the hills, “It occurs to me that we haven’t really shown Five around the Neighbourhood...or the neighbours.” 

Five’s eyes narrowed at this, not liking the tone in her partner’s voice or the gleam in the sharp, hazel eyes. 

_You mean New Canton?”_ Sam asked. 

“I sure as heck don’t mean the Zombies.” Sara joked in a voice that sounded anything but humorous. Five’s ears pricked slightly at the crackle of twigs underfoot that was a little too close for comfort. A rotund grey form swayed and staggered in their direction only a few meters away, its jaw slack and viscous drool swinging down from the split, swollen lower lip. 

“ _Do we want to start a war with New Canton?”_ Sam asked over the radio. He sounded concerned. Five’s grey eyes flicked in Eight’s direction to see a wry smirk curl her lips. 

“Just a little payback, Sam. Don;t you remember how they herded those zombs towards us when they were building new barracks?”

Five arched an eyebrow at this. Herding zombs away was a familiar tactic and herding them towards other humans _was_ the most efficient and effective method--especially when said humans had the means of trapping or eliminating said zombs. Even sending them towards unconsenting humans, while cold, wasn’t surprising. Intentionally sending a hoard towards a much smaller and far more vulnerable settlement? It didn’t surprise her, per se, but to say that it didn’t _impress_ her was putting it mildly. 

“ _Well, yeah, but…”_

“If the major were here, we’d check with her. As it is, New Canton is to the north. Our exit is to the north. You know it makes sense, Sam! Speed up, quick! Towards New Canton!” the older woman’s order ended with another round of coughing that prompted Five to widen the gap between by another foot or so as they kept running. 

The zombs were starting to gain on them, or rather--more accurately--more were approaching and getting closer. Five and Eight could see features on the grey faces as zombs stumbled over themselves, drooling and groaning and practically frothing at the mouth as they reached with clawing, yet oddly limp hands. Five’s icy gaze bounced around them in search of something that could possibly help them. As they neared the edge of the woods she saw it; a long, leafy branch that had partially split from its main trunk so that it swayed around head and shoulder height, As they passed it, Five ducked to the side and grabbed the end, running around the other end of the trail with it so that the branch was creaking with the strain and then letting it go with a * _crack*_. The force of the blow knocked several of the zombs hottest on their heels off their feet and crashing into the undead bodies behind them. It created enough of a domino effect to give the two runners a little more room to breathe. 

“Not bad,” Eight commended.She jerked her head and gestured with one hand. “Come on, just over these hills and you’ll see New Canton. They probably won’t be too pleased to see our dates back there, but that’s a problem for them,”

She wasn’t wrong; New Canton’s scouts on the wall were furious and screamed at them through a megaphone, but they also were very handy in taking out the bulk of the group following them. Their parting curses fell on deaf ears as both Runners were grinning from ear to ear with the adrenaline rush of a well-executed plan.

The trek back to Abel didn’t take nearly as long when they weren’t constantly doubling back and circling around to collect zombies. As they were going Sara noticed that her companion had quite the eagle eye; she darted off several times with a quick military gesture that she had seen something, returning promptly with assorted items in-hand. The handy thing about a redirected horde was that they sometimes managed to drop something useful. By the time they approached Abel’s ram-shackle walls, both of them had several tins of food, an assortment of first aid supplies, a couple of sports bras of all things stuffed into their packs. Five had even found a USB key. 

They could see the other runners returning from their distraction duty through the newly-repaired gates and slowed first to a jog, then to a walk. Sara looked around at the country side to make a final cursory check for zombs and heaved a dramatic sigh.

“Well. I guess this turned out to be less of a good time for a little chit-chat than I hoped, Five. Truth is, I wanted to find out if I could trust you.” Sara remarked. Five just looked at her with that wary, guarded gaze. The suspicion was clearly mutual. Sara huffed a little in approval and continued cheerily “There’s some pretty strange stuff going on around here. The Major’s called away on urgent business, someone brings a chopper down, firing from the middle of the zombie wilderness, and you turn up like a white knight… Too damn convenient, Five.” 

Runner Five cocked an eyebrow and then snorted.

“Maybe for _you_ ,” She scoffed, overtaking Runner Eight as they headed back for the Gates as Sam’s voice sounded again over the radio, radiating relief and congratulations on a job well done. Runner Eight slowed a fraction, caught by surprise for a moment at Five’s reaction. 

“Huh.” She huffed to herself wryly, “So she _can_ speak. Good to know.”

* * *

Sam tossed his headphones onto the desk in front of him with a clatter and a sigh as he leaned back in his chair. He ran his hands down his face as though he could physically smooth the stress out. The gates were repaired and closed. The Runners were back inside--all of them. Safe. 

“They’re back, they’re safe. They’re back, they’re safe,” He groaned to himself in relief, trying to get his heartbeat to stop pounding in his ears. He was almost glad for the stress of directing 6 pairs of Runners at once, it had given him something else to focus on during the panic attack Eight had given him when she turned off her microphone. _Why_ couldn’t she understand what that did to him right now? So soon after…

No. No, he wasn’t doing this now. Sam couldn’t do this now. She wasn’t even the first Runner he’d lost...Just the one who had mattered the most to him. But he had to keep going. He had to keep going.  
  


“Okay,” Sam said to himself with a heaving sigh as he flopped forward to hunch over his knees, rubbing at his temple with the heel of his hand. “Don’t think about Alice. Don’t think about Alice. Get yourself together. The Runners need you. Get up.” 

He’d never convince Runner Eight to change her habits. But maybe he might be able to get through to Runner Five and nip that in the bud. The Runners would be getting their bite checks done now, but he might be able to talk to her in the evening. Yes, that sounded like a good idea. He’d talk to her at dinner. 

* * *

That evening Sara decided to extend her first real olive branch to the New Girl. Normally runners would eat at the farmhouse after a hard run, but with all the stress from the broken fence it had been decided that the township would have something of a party to let off some steam. They had pulled out a roast from one of the chest freezers in Janine’s cellars and it was cooking over the firepit outside to some mild fanfare. It took Sara a few minutes to find the newcomer standing off to the side with Sam. 

The Radio operator was talking to her and she was listening with a more relaxed form than Sara had seen her so far, though she looked concerned. Weariness could have factored in, but Sara didn’t think so. As she neared the pair close enough to hear their conversation.

“... _please_ don’t make a habit of doing what Eight did today with the radio,” he said clearly finishing some sort of anxious ramble. The corner of Sara;s mouth twitched in sympathy, but she wasn’t about to change her habits. There were things that poor Sam didn’t need to hear. Five, for her part, simply gave him a reassuring nod and a smile, watching him as he responded to the summons of a group of runners. Sara took the opportunity to approach and stand next to her. She saw Five’s frame tense again ever so slightly with wariness. Sara just smirked and sipped at her mug of whiskey. 

“You did good work today, Five. I’d have you as a partner again any time.” Sara commended the young woman. She watched as a fraction--just a fraction--of the tension left Five’s shoulders again. The younger girl gave her a slight nod of thanks. 

Sara’s smirk twitched wider in amusement as she stuck her free hand into a pocket and produced a chocolate bar, holding it out to Five over her shoulder. 

“Here. I’d say you earned this. Consider it a peace offering,” she said. Five blinked and looked at it, taking the offered candy cautiously. 

“Quick pro-tip, no one minds if a runner holds onto the odd candy bar or something small like that that we pick up on a run. Each of us has our own stash.”  
  


Five offered her the smallest of smiles in thanks and Eight responded with a wry smirk of her own. 

“So I meant what I said, earlier.” Sarah said as she leaned against the trunk of the large apple tree in a standing lounge, both her arms and ankles crossed. “We make a good team, you and I.” 

Five tilted her head, curious. The firelight caught her large burn scar, making it glisten slightly and reminding the older runner of her lingering--though lessening--suspicions. Sara noticed that her expression was relaxing by the tiniest of fractions as the evening went on as well. 

“I could use a reliable Mission Partner for the big stuff. I think you just might be able to keep up.” 

The fine, dark eyebrow quirked, acknowledging and accepting the challenge that Sara was laying out for her. Her smile stretched a little further. The older redhead grinned. 

“Well then. Enjoy tonight, Five, ‘cause I’m going to start getting you up early for some extra training. And, after you’ve settled in a bit more--when the time is right--you and I will have a talk about Project Greenshoot.” 

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming up next: Five starts accumulating Township-Cred. 
> 
> https://www.instagram.com/p/CKuLd0MMI9-/ 
> 
> Attached above; Portrait of a grieving, worn down Sam Yao. I plan to do another one of him looking a little more cheerful, but that's where he is in the story right now. I picture this as him right after Alice where he's still mildly in shock.  
> If you like it, let me know and let me know who in Abel you'd like to see next :)


End file.
